Going to the Aquarium

Last Thursday we went to the Pine Knoll Aquarium.  It was shark day so we (the adults) thought the kids would love to see the special shark stuff.  Also, some of the adults love sharks and thought this would be a good prelude to "Shark Week!"

To get to the aquarium we had to ride the Minnesott Ferry.  It was a crazy windy day so it was a bumpier than normal ferry ride.  The kids love riding the ferry.

Leah's hair was a little out of control because of the wind

the other ferry

I am not a huge fan of aquariums.  I love the ocean and lakes and prefer to pretend those animals don't live there.  I know that is ridiculous, but being at an aquarium kind of brings it all to life.  Either way, it was fun.  It is a very nice aquarium with lots of fun exhibits.

Sand sculpture outside the aquarium

Cool fish display outside

I do love penguins.  I think they are so cute.  I was excited to see the penguin exhibit and surprised to learn that they prefer to live in warm environments with cool water currents.  Who knew?  I thought they lived near the South Pole and similar places.  The one penguin was quite the showman and liked to watch the people.

We saw lots of fish (obviously).  I passed on the snake exhibits...gross!  We watched a turtle bury itself in a river bed which was pretty cool.  There was an open pool where we could touch stingrays and another open pool where we could pick up shells with crabs in the them.  The kids loved these two exhibits.  There was also a very cool jellyfish tank and I wish I had gotten a good picture of that.

The main feature of the day was the sharks.  There was a huge water tank with a sunken ship replica.  The tank was filled with different kinds of big and little fish.  There were also four sharks.  One was a tiger shark which had crazy sharp teeth and two other kinds.  After a quick little presentation three divers entered the area to swim with the sharks. That was very cool and the kids loved that.  After the show, the divers high-fived the kids through the window, which they probably liked the most.  The diver by us also did a flip which was fun.

The diver high-fiving the kids

The kids very much enjoyed all the animals and so did I; however, I really liked reading about all the sunken ships. North Carolina is home to one of the world's largest areas of sunken ships.  Blackbeard's ship is sunk near Beaufort.  There are several hundred sunken ships dating from the late 1700's to 1969.  I found all this history very interesting!

Now we all have to stop worrying about sharks so we can go to the beach next week!